The Professor
by fieldagent85
Summary: After the debacle at the winery opening, Kitty and Nora reflect upon the harsh realities of dating. Postep for 1.21: Grapes of Wrath.


For the past few hours, Nora Walker had been losing herself in the answers to questions that hadn't yet been asked. She sat on the edge of the pool with her feet danglng in the water leaning back on her hands. She reaped no benefits from the night sky, not like she had hoped. The evening breeze was much less calming than she had anticipated and the light of the stars only reminded her of the joy she lacked. She felt very little; mostly she was numb. Maybe this was her fate.

Kitty stood in the kitchen for a few moments, watching her mother by the pool. She didn't know what to say. She really didn't. A daughter having to comfort her mother after the demise of a romance was not the natural order of things. Still without any advice or comforting words in mind, she ventured outside and slowly approached her mother. Nora looked up when she heard her daughter's footsteps, and Kitty sat down beside her.

"Hey," Kitty greeted her softly.

"Hey," Nora replied, sounding as numb as she felt.

"You okay?"

Nora merely turned her head and locked eyes with her fleetingly before turning away once more. She focused on the movement of the water in the pool but avoided her reflection.

"I suppose I should have seen it coming," she said eventually. "I knew from the beginning, I knew..."

"Denial can be a beautiful thing," Kitty responded. "Beautifully tragic."

"Why does this keep happening to me?" Nora asked, pleadingly. "Is there something about me? Something that just...drives men to be unfaithful. What? Or is it something about her? Is she so much more desirable?"

Kitty shook her head. "Please. She's washed up, dried out. You don't look a day over forty."

"Then why?"

"I don't know, Mom. I wish I did."

"Maybe I've used up my dance card," Nora said, sadly. "Maybe I'm just not meant to be with anyone else."

Kitty gazed at her sympathetically. "No one's meant to be alone. I believe that."

"I had forty years. Where's the rule that says I get any more than that?"

"It's unwritten," Kitty answered. "But it's there. And really, Mom, for a widow of only nine months, you've done pretty well for yourself."

"Two failed relationships is doing well for myself?"

"Would you prefer no relationships at all?"

"I don't know," Nora replied honsetly. "Maybe."

"It's not going to happen right away, Mom. It never does."

"It did for me."

When Kitty looked up, she noticed the tears in her mother's eyes as she spoke.

"I got married at nineteen, Kitty. I've never had to play the dating game. I graduated high school, I fell in love, I got married, I lived happily ever after. Or at least, I was supposed to. I don't know how to do this."

"Welcome to the year 2007," Kitty stated. "This isn't 1966. It's harder now. I don't know why, but it's harder now. I'm thirty-eight years old and I'm still looking."

"But I don't _have_ thirty-eight years."

"Yes, but you've already had the love of your life. There's no reason for you to hold out until you find your next great love. Play the field, enjoy the sport. You've spent the last forty years devoted to one man. Maybe you should think about spending the next forty devoted to yourself."

"I don't know how to be alone, Kitty. And let's face it, it won't be long before this house is empty."

"You don't have to bench yourself to focus on yourself. Go ahead and date, enjoy the company of other men, shop around until you find one that makes you feel at least a fraction of what Dad made you feel and stick with him. But if you don't walk into a relationship with expectations, you can never be disappointed."

"Is that your sage advice?"

"Yes," Kitty said firmly. "That is my sage advice. That's thirty-eight years of loneliness talking. And it hasn't been easy. When I think of you, and how when you were thirty-eight, you already had five kids and almost twenty years of marriage under your belt...you don't know what that does to me. Love hasn't changed. But dating sure isn't what it used to be."


End file.
